The Southland Will Rise Again. Get It? This is TV News Wrapped in A Gold Fist of Comedy, People.

Fans of Southland, the LA-mean-streets cop show starring Ben McKenzie, are dancing in the streets and no longer calling for the blood and chin of Jay Leno. Because Southland is coming back - although it won't be showing on NBC. Instead, the show will air on TNT on Tuesdays at 10:00 pm. So why is that prompting not only glee but also evil laughter on my part?

A 10:00 pm time slot means that Southland will now be going up against the show and the man that I enjoy blaming for Southland's cancellation in the first place - The Jay Leno Show.

Southland originally aired in a 10 pm time slot on NBC, but the scheduling of Leno's weird nasal braying and ill-fitting suits, like a goat sent into a corporate meeting as a prank, pushed Southland back to 9 pm. NBC then realized that Dateline could make them a hell of a lot more money in the 9 pm slot than some cop show. So, after shooting seven episodes of season two and airing a grand total of none of them, NBC banished Southland to the land of wind and ghosts.

These are all financially sound decisions that enable the major networks to keep on producing and then pissing on quality content.

But it's not all Firefly for Southland. TNT has picked up the second season show and plans to air at least thirteen episodes. The good news is that the looser strictures of cable television will probably allow the show's producers and writers to push the storylines a little further. The bad news is that Jay Leno is still curled up in his dank cave somewhere, feasting on the soul of humanity and cracking lame jokes the whole damn time.